Seeing Good in Your Bad (Episode 23)

In this podcast episode, Frank King challenges believers to learn to see some good even in bad times. But oftentimes, seeing good in your bad is not an easy thing to do. Too often, when bad times come in our life, all we can see and think about and talk about is what we are going through. God, however, can take those situations and use them for His glory.

One purpose of the gospel is to change our perspective on life and on the challenges we face in life. Since God is with us, even our bad times are seasoned with some good. According to the Bible, God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him. That’s a good reason to believe that even when things are bad for us, God is causing them to trend toward something good on our behalf.

Seeing good in your bad is an act of faith. You must be able to look beyond what you see and believe the hand of God is working on your behalf. Sometimes, He is working out His best in you through the bad things He allows you to endure.

Every one of us is going to be tried in this life at one time or another. That is true even when you faithfully serve the Lord. Paul writes, “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12, NASB). “All” means no exceptions.

Paul Sees Good in His Imprisonment

One reason Paul the apostle was such a dynamic servant of God was because he understood that his life was not just about him. What God was doing in his life was bigger than he was. Even when life was difficult for him, he saw good things happening.

Paul’s love for the Lord, reflected in his letter to the church at Philippi, should challenge all of us. While in prison in Rome, those who heard of his afflictions were emboldened to preach. But not all of those preachers had the right motive for preaching. “Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from good will,” Paul says (Philippians 1:15). He could do nothing about how others were exploiting his imprisonment. He was confined to jail.

But Paul could look beyond the bad and see the good. “In every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I will rejoice” (verse 18)!

Put yourself in Paul the apostle’s shoes. You are the world’s most influential Christian leader. But now you are in jail for the cause of Christ. You are no longer free to go about preaching and defending the gospel. Others are using your affliction to exploit the gospel. What would your state of mind be in a situation like that?

Of course, a difficult time in your life is bad--period. The message in this episode is not an appeal to deny that fact. But the question is, are you capable of seeing good in your bad?